Page 48 of Jonas

But I needed some time by myself. Or so I’d thought. However, I’d been roaming the property for the last hour, and the opposite of what I needed to happen was happening. The longer I walked around, the more intense the memories became. I could almost visualize myself in my prairie dress and ugly black sneakers walking through the hay field before me—like an out-of-body experience. The dirt smelled different in Maryland than it did in Utah. There was no pine scent in the air, no foothills, no distant gurgling of the creek, but the feeling was the same. The quiet peacefulness that should’ve been a balm was instead a knife to my heart.

I didn’t like the city. It never crossed my mind to buy a house in a neighborhood or live in a development. I had a small apartment in Norfolk, Virginia that sat vacant most of the time. I despised it—the location, the noise, the ever present streetlights. But it was convenient. That had been my life the last seven years. I’d made do with what I had, whatever was easiest. I didn’t care where I lived because I was rarely there. I didn’t give myself time to stop and think—to remember what it was like to be alone with my thoughts surrounded by nature.

Now I knew why—unconscious preservation. I had no business reminiscing, or worse, yearning to invent the childhood I should’ve had by recreating parts of the past.

There were no do-overs in life.

On that thought, I heard the snap of a twig—with a practiced ear I knew the sound was made by a human.

Another skill I picked up from childhood that had served me well—if you paid attention, not only to how someone moved, the physical gestures they made, the way their eyes shifted, but also what kind of laundry detergent they used, the soap, the perfume or aftershave, it was difficult for someone to catch you off-guard.

And I knew that smell. Jonas didn’t wear aftershave, at least not since I’d been around him, but he did use Irish Spring soap and he must’ve taken a shower because the scent was fresh, and imbuing the air the closer he got.

“I wasn’t going to interrupt,” Jonas said from behind me. “But Lore’s ten minutes out and I thought you’d want to be part of the briefing.”

He was right, I did. But now that I wasn’t working the Delcon angle and wouldn’t have new intel to bring to the table, I felt weird—like an interloper.

Somehow in less than twenty-four hours, six months of work had been flushed down the toilet.

“Should I be in that meeting?” I asked, feeling unsure.

“Do you want to be?”

I was still facing the woods. Jonas was behind me—by the sound and smell of him only a few feet away.

I kept my gaze on the tangle of downed trees in front of me.

“Nature teaches us everything we need to know,” I muttered.

“What?”

His question came from closer.

“The poplar.” I pointed to the biggest tree on top of the pile. “When it fell, it took out the smaller beech. One rotten tree had taken out three smaller, healthy ones. Who’s the poplar and who’s the beech?”

“The easy answer is, Maddon’s the poplar,” he told me.

“And the beech? How many will fall now that Maddon’s not here to protect them? How deep does this go? How many ‘Johns’ have been activated? Not just in Canada but here?”

“What are you really asking, Dee Dee?”

I craned my neck and shuffled sideways to look at Jonas. When I did, I found him standing close, just where I thought he was. But I never could’ve predicted the look on his face—gentle yet alert.

Attentive. Expectant. Interested.

I had no choice but to stand there and let the burn scorch through me. Once I was fully engulfed, only then did I allow myself to admit that the sting not only came from the use of the nickname but more from the way he was staring at me.

When I remained silent, he tipped his head and his study of me intensified, which in turn made my belly flutter.

“Derrika?”

What were we discussing?

The poplar and the beech.

Damn. I couldn’t remember where I was going with that analogy, and now that I’d said it, I wasn’t sure it made as much sense as it did in my head.

“What if it’s too late? What if the plan is already in motion?”